Learning Center

Severe Mental Illness

How do you get the essential mental status information you need from patients who mistrust your intentions? Featuring two contrasting scenarios, this video offers practical and relational tools you can use to assess patients who are difficult to engage.

When a suicidal client is sitting across from you, how do you assess risk, negotiate no-harm agreements, and manage borderline reactivity while keeping your seat? In these riveting live demonstrations with DBT originator Marsha Linehan, learn essential strategies for working with distressed clients.

Watch Marsha Linehan, founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), in action in this session with a middle-aged man with a significant personality disorder struggling with suicidal depression and anger after being left by his girlfriend.

Prepare to be riveted by these live demonstrations with DBT originator Marsha Linehan. From assessing suicidality to negotiating no-harm agreements to maintaining a grounded stance, the formidable clinician offers effective strategies for working with distressed borderline clients.

Prepare to be enthralled in these riveting live demonstrations with Dr. Marsha Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. From assessing negotiating no-harm agreements to conducting a chain analysis and problem solving techniques, you’ll pick up compelling strategies for working with suicidal, borderline and emotionally dysregulated clients.

Preeminent psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg doesn’t back down in this series of three diagnostic Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) sessions with a paranoid client struggling with suicidal depression after being left by his girlfriend.

Ten to twenty percent of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder will commit suicide, and 75% of them will not be properly diagnosed within the first three years of treatment. With stakes this high, it’s essential to understand the complexities of Bipolar Disorder. Learn how to build effective, evidence-based treatment plans in this indispensable video.

When patients threaten to become verbally or physically aggressive, it takes a special set of skills to work safely and effectively. In this video, watch two health care providers demonstrate how these skills—or the lack thereof—impact their work.

In this video, learn to work calmly and efficiently with patients experiencing the severe agitation of dementia or anxiety. Here, two vignettes contrast the differences between inexperienced and experienced providers, including a counterintuitive method for soothing dementia patients.

What are the most essential skills and techniques for working with severely depressed patients? Find out what to do—and what not to do—in this two-part demonstration of a mental health practitioner interviewing a suicidally depressed hospital patient.

When working with patients experiencing mania, clear boundaries and goal-oriented communication can help you maintain control. Learn from a pro—and empathize with a novice—in this two-part video demonstrating successful treatment of manic patients.

What are the most essential skills and techniques for succeeding with patients in hospitals and treatment centers? Discover the difference between novice unskilled and expert work care for a range of severe conditions in this 5-part video series.

In this first volume of our new series, The DSM 5 and Psychodiagnostic Interviewing, Jason Buckles and Victor Yalom take a nuanced and critical look at psychiatric diagnosis and the DSM-5, and then demonstrate in a step-by-step manner the components and skills necessary to do a diagnostic interview.
Part of the 4-video series: The DSM-5 and Psychodiagnostic Interviewing

Schizophrenia, Anorexia, and Borderline Personality Disorder—difficult to treat, challenging for most clinicians and absolutely essential to diagnose accurately. In volume 4 of this series, learn the specialized skills required to gather information and establish rapport with clients struggling with these disorders.

Psychiatrist and social critic Thomas Szasz unsettled the psychiatric establishment in the 1960’s, challenging its foundational notions around normalcy, mental illness and treatment. By watching this pair of riveting interviews, Dr. Szasz will challenge you to explore and question your own cherished beliefs around diagnosis, psychotherapy and freedom; deepening your empathy for even the most challenging clients.

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Heather Clague offers reflections on the difference between private psychotherapy practice and working in the psychiatric emergency room, how prescribing medication broadens psychotherapy, and the joy and heartache of working with those society is "happy to ignore."